Eyoub, the Ababdah Guide.CHAPTER XIV.THE GREAT NUBIAN DESERT.The Curve of the Nile—Routes across the Desert—Our Caravan starts—Riding on a Dromedary—The Guide and Camel-drivers—Hair-dressing—El Biban—Scenery—Dead Camels—An Unexpected Visit—The Guide makes my Grave—The River without Water—Characteristics of the Mirage—Desert Life—The Sun—The Desert Air—Infernal Scenery—The Wells of Mûrr-hàt—Christmas—Mountain Chains—Meeting Caravans—Plains of Gravel—The Story of Joseph—Djebel Mokràt—The Last Day in the Desert—We see the Nile again.
Eyoub, the Ababdah Guide.
Eyoub, the Ababdah Guide.
Eyoub, the Ababdah Guide.
The Curve of the Nile—Routes across the Desert—Our Caravan starts—Riding on a Dromedary—The Guide and Camel-drivers—Hair-dressing—El Biban—Scenery—Dead Camels—An Unexpected Visit—The Guide makes my Grave—The River without Water—Characteristics of the Mirage—Desert Life—The Sun—The Desert Air—Infernal Scenery—The Wells of Mûrr-hàt—Christmas—Mountain Chains—Meeting Caravans—Plains of Gravel—The Story of Joseph—Djebel Mokràt—The Last Day in the Desert—We see the Nile again.
“He sees the snake-like caravan crawlO’er the edge of the Desert, black and small,And nearer and nearer, till, one by one.He can count its camels in the sun.”—Lowell.
“He sees the snake-like caravan crawlO’er the edge of the Desert, black and small,And nearer and nearer, till, one by one.He can count its camels in the sun.”—Lowell.
“He sees the snake-like caravan crawlO’er the edge of the Desert, black and small,And nearer and nearer, till, one by one.He can count its camels in the sun.”—Lowell.
“He sees the snake-like caravan crawl
O’er the edge of the Desert, black and small,
And nearer and nearer, till, one by one.
He can count its camels in the sun.”—Lowell.
A glance at the map will explain the necessity of my Desert journey. The Nile, at Korosko (which is in lat. 22° 38′), makes a sharp bend to the west, and in ascending his current,one travels in a south-westerly direction nearly to Dongola, thence south to Edabbe, in lat. 18°, after which his course is north-east as far as lat. 19° 30′, where he again resumes the general southern direction. The termini of this immense curve, called by the ancients the “elbows” of the Nile, are Korosko and Abou-Hammed, in southern Nubia. About ninety miles above the former place, at Wadi Haifa, is the second cataract of the Nile, the Southern Thule of Egyptian tourists. The river, between that point and Dongola, is so broken by rapids, that vessels can only pass during the inundation, and then with great difficulty and danger. The exigencies of trade have established, no doubt since the earliest times, the shorter route through the Desert. The distance between Korosko and Abou-Hammed, by the river, is more than six hundred miles, while by the Desert, it is, according to my reckoning, only two hundred and forty-seven miles. The former caravan route led directly from Assouan to Berber and Shendy, and lay some distance to the eastward of that from Korosko. It is the same travelled by Bruce and Burckhardt, but is now almost entirely abandoned, since the countries of Soudân have been made tributary to Egypt. It lies through a chain of valleys, inhabited by the Ababdeh Arabs, and according to Burckhardt, there are trees and water, at short intervals, for the greater part of the way. The same traveller thus describes the route from Korosko: “On that road the traveller finds only a single well, which is situated midway, four long days distant from Berber and as many from Sebooa [near Korosko]. A great inconvenience on that road is that neither trees nor shrubs are anywhere found, whence the camels are much distressed for food, and passengers are obliged to carry wood with them to dress their meals.”
On the morning of the 21st of December, the water-skins were filled from the Nile, the baggage carefully divided into separate loads, the unwilling camels received their burdens, and I mounted a dromedary for the first time. My little caravan consisted of six camels, including that of the guide. As it was put in motion, the Governor and Shekh Abou-Mohammed wished me a safe journey and the protection of Allah. We passed the miserable hamlet of Korosko, turned a corner of the mountain-chain into a narrow stony valley, and in a few minutes lost sight of the Nile and his belt of palms. Thenceforth, for many days, the only green thing to be seen in all the wilderness was myself. After two or three hours’ travel, we passed an encampment of Arabs, where my Bishàrees added another camel for their own supplies, and two Nubians, mounted on donkeys, joined us for the march to Berber. The first day’s journey lay among rugged hills, thrown together confusedly, with no apparent system or direction. They were of jet black sandstone, and resembled immense piles of coke and anthracite. The small glens and basins inclosed in this chaos were filled with glowing yellow sand, which in many places streamed down the crevices of the black rocks, like rivulets of fire. The path was strewn with hollow globes of hard, black stones, precisely resembling cannon-balls. The guide gave me one of the size of a rifle-bullet, with a seam around the centre, as if cast in a mould. The thermometer showed a temperature of eighty degrees at twoP. M., but the heat was tempered by a pure, fresh breeze. After eight hours’ travel, I made my first camp at sunset, in a little hollow inclosed by mountains, where a gray jackal, after being twice shot at, came and looked into the door of the tent.
I found dromedary-riding not at all difficult. One sits on a very lofty seat, with his feet crossed over the animal’s shoulders or resting on his neck. The body is obliged to rock backward and forward, on account of the long, swinging gait, and as there is no stay or fulcrum except a blunt pommel, around which the legs are crossed, some little power of equilibrium is necessary. My dromedary was a strong, stately beast, of a light cream color, and so even a gait, that it would bear the Arab test: that is, one might drink a cup of coffee, while going on a full trot, without spilling a drop. I found a great advantage in the use of the Oriental costume. My trowsers allowed the legs perfect freedom of motion, and I soon learned so many different modes of crossing those members, that no day was sufficient to exhaust them. The rising and kneeling of the animal is hazardous at first, as his long legs double together like a carpenter’s rule, and you are thrown backwards and then forwards, and then backwards again, but the trick of it is soon learned. The soreness and fatigue of which many travellers complain, I never felt, and I attribute much of it to the Frank dress. I rode from eight to ten hours a day, read and even dreamed in the saddle, and was at night as fresh and unwearied as when I mounted in the morning.
My caravan was accompanied by four Arabs. The guide, Eyoub, was an old Ababdeh, who knew all the Desert between the Red Sea and the Nile, as far south as Abyssinia. The camel-drivers were of the great Bishàree tribe, which extends from Shendy, in Ethiopia, through the eastern portion of the Nubian Desert, to the frontiers of Egypt. They owned the burden camels, which they urged along with the cry of “Yo-ho! Shekh Abd-el Kader!” and a shrill barbaric song, therefrain of which was: “O Prophet of God, help the camels and bring us safely to our journey’s end!” They were very susceptible to cold, and a temperature of 50°, which we frequently had in the morning, made them tremble like aspen leaves, and they were sometimes so benumbed that they could scarcely load the camels. They were proud of their enormous heads of hair, which they wore parted on both temples, the middle portion being drawn into an upright mass, six inches in height, while the side divisions hung over the ears in a multitude of little twists. These love-locks they anointed every morning with suet, and looked as if they had slept in a hard frost, until the heat had melted the fat. I thought to flatter one of them as he performed the operation, by exclaiming “Beautiful!”—but he answered coolly: “You speak truth: it is very beautiful.” Through the central mass of hair a wooden skewer was stuck, in order to scratch the head without disturbing the arrangement. They wore long swords, carried in a leathern scabbard over the left shoulder, and sometimes favored us with a war-dance, which consisted merely in springing into the air with a brandished sword and turning around once before coming down. Their names were El Emeem, Hossayn and Ali. We called the latter Shekh Ali, on account of his hair. He wore nothing but a ragged cotton clout, yet owned two camels, had a tent in the Desert, and gave Achmet a bag of dollars to carry for him. I gave to El Emeem, on account of his shrill voice, the nickname ofWiz(wild goose), by which he was thenceforth called. They were all very devout, retiring a short distance from the road to say their prayers, at the usual hours and performing the prescribed ablutions with sand, instead of water.
On the second morning we passed through a gorge in the black hills, and entered a region calledEl Biban, or “The Grates.” Here the mountains, though still grouped in the same disorder, were more open and gave room to plains of sand several miles in length. The narrow openings, through which the road passes from one plain to another, gave rise to the name. The mountains are higher than on the Nile, and present the most wonderful configurations—towers, fortresses, walls, pyramids, temples in ruin, of an inky blackness near at hand, but tinged of a deep, glowing violet hue in the distance. Towards noon I saw a mirage—a lake in which the broken peaks were reflected with great distinctness. One of the Nubians who was with us, pointed out a spot where he was obliged to climb the rocks, the previous summer, to avoid being drowned. During the heavy tropical rains which sometimes fall here, the hundreds of pyramidal hills pour down such floods that the sand cannot immediately drink them up, and the valleys are turned into lakes. The man described the roaring of the waters, down the clefts of the rocks, as something terrible. In summer the passage of the Desert is much more arduous than in winter, and many men and camels perish. The road was strewn with bones and carcasses, and I frequently counted twenty dead camels within a stone’s throw. The stone-heaps which are seen on all the spurs of the hills, as landmarks for caravans, have become useless, since one could find his way by the bones in the sand. My guide, who was a great believer in afrites and devils, said that formerly many persons lost the way and perished from thirst, all of which was the work of evil spirits.
My next camp was in the midst of a high circular plain,surrounded by hundreds of black peaks. Here I had an unexpected visit. I was sitting in my tent, about eight o’clock, when I heard the tramp of dromedaries outside, and a strange voice saying:ana wahed Ingleez(I am an Englishman). It proved to be Capt. Peel, of the British Navy, (son of the late Sir Robert Peel), who was returning from a journey to Khartoum and Kordofan. He was attended by a single guide, and carried only a water-skin and a basket of bread. He had travelled nearly day and night since leaving Berber, and would finish the journey from that place to Korosko—a distance of four hundred miles—in seven days. He spent an hour with me, and then pushed onward through “The Gates” towards the Nile. It had been his intention to penetrate into Dar-Fūr, a country yet unvisited by any European, but on reaching Obeid, the Capital of Kordofan, his companion, a Syrian Arab, fell sick, and he was himself attacked with the ague. This decided him to return, and he had left his baggage and servants to follow, and was making for England with all speed. He was provided with all the necessary instruments to make his travel useful in a scientific point of view, and the failure of his plans is much to be regretted. I was afterwards informed by M. Linant that he met Capt. Peel on the following day, and supplied him with water enough to reach the Nile.
Towards noon, on the third day, we passed the last of the “Gates,” and entered theBahr bela Ma(River without Water), a broad plain of burning yellow sand. The gateway is very imposing, especially on the eastern side, where it is broken by a valley or gorge of Tartarean blackness. As we passed the last peak, my guide, who had ridden in advance dismounted beside what seemed to be a collection of graves—littleridges of sand, with rough head and foot stones. He sat by one which he had just made. As I came up he informed me that all travellers who crossed the Nubian Desert, for the first time, are here expected to pay a toll, or fee to the guide and camel-men. “But what if I do not choose to pay?” I asked. “Then you will immediately perish, and be buried here. The graves are those of persons who refused to pay.” As I had no wish to occupy the beautiful mound he had heaped for me, with the thigh-bones of a camel at the head and foot, I gave the men a few piastres, and passed the place. He then plucked up the bones and threw them away, and restored the sand to its original level.[1]
TheBahr bela Maspread out before us, glittering in the hot sun. About a mile to the eastward lay (apparently) a lake of blue water. Reeds and water-plants grew on its margin, and its smooth surface reflected the rugged outline of the hills beyond. The Waterless River is about two miles in breadth, and appears to have been at one time the bed of a large stream.It crosses all the caravan routes in the desert, and is supposed to extend from the Nile to the Red Sea. It may have been the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage through the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan and Kalabshee. A geological exploration of this part of Africa could not fail to produce very interesting results. Beyond theBahr bela Maextends the broad central plateau of the Desert, fifteen hundred feet above the sea. It is a vast reach of yellow sand, dotted with low, isolated hills, which in some places are based on large beds of light-gray sandstone of an unusually fine and even grain. Small towers of stone have been erected on the hills nearest the road, in order to guide the couriers who travel by night. Near one of them the guide pointed out the grave of a merchant, who had been murdered there two years previous, by his three slaves. The latter escaped into the Desert, but probably perished, as they were never heard of afterwards. In the smooth, loose sand, I had an opportunity of reviving my forgotten knowledge of trackography, and soon learned to distinguish the feet of hyenas, foxes, ostriches, lame camels and other animals. The guide assured me that there were devils in the Desert, but one only sees them when he travels alone.
On this plain the mirage, which first appeared in the Biban, presented itself under a variety of wonderful aspects. Thenceforth, I saw it every day, for hours together, and tried to deduce some rules from the character of its phenomena. It appears on all sides, except that directly opposite to the sun, but rarely before nineA. M.or after threeP. M.The color of the apparent water is always precisely that of the sky, and this is a good test to distinguish it from real water, which is invariablyof a deeper hue. It is seen on a gravelly as well as a sandy surface, and often fills with shining pools the slight depressions in the soil at the bases of the hills. Where it extends to the horizon there is no apparent line, and it then becomes an inlet of the sky, as if the walls of heaven were melting down and flowing in upon the earth. Sometimes a whole mountain chain is lifted from the horizon and hung in the air, with its reflected image joined to it, base to base. I frequently saw, during the forenoon, lakes of sparkling blue water, apparently not a quarter of a mile distant. The waves ripple in the wind; tall reeds and water-plants grow on the margin, and the Desert rocks behind cast their shadows on the surface. It is impossible to believe it a delusion. You advance nearer, and suddenly, you know not how, the lake vanishes. There is a grayish film over the spot, but before you have decided whether the film is in the air or in your eyes, that too disappears, and you see only the naked sand. What you took to be reeds and water-plants probably shows itself as a streak of dark gravel. The most probable explanation of the mirage which I could think of, was, that it was actually a reflection of the sky upon a stratum of heated air, next the sand.
I found the Desert life not only endurable but very agreeable. No matter how warm it might be at mid-day, the nights were always fresh and cool, and the wind blew strong from the north-west, during the greater part of the time. The temperature varied from 50°-55° at 6A. M.to 80°-85° at 2P. M.The extremes were 47° and 100°. So great a change of temperature every day was not so unpleasant as might be supposed. In my case, Nature seemed to make a special provision in order to keep the balance right. During the hot hours ofthe day I never suffered inconvenience from the heat, but up to 85° felt sufficiently cool. I seemed to absorb the rays of the sun, and as night came on and the temperature of the air fell, that of my skin rose, till at last I glowed through and through, like a live coal. It was a peculiar sensation, which I never experienced before, but was rather pleasant than otherwise. My face, however, which was alternately exposed to the heat radiated from the sand, and the keen morning wind; could not accommodate itself to so much contraction and expansion. The skin cracked and peeled off more than once, and I was obliged to rub it daily with butter. I mounted my dromedary with a “shining morning face,” until, from alternate buttering and burning, it attained the hue and crispness of a well-basted partridge.
I soon fell into a regular daily routine of travel, which, during all my later experiences of the Desert, never became monotonous. I rose at dawn every morning, bathed my eyes with a handful of the precious water, and drank a cup of coffee. After the tent had been struck and the camels laden, I walked ahead for two hours, often so far in advance that I lost sight and hearing of the caravan. I found an unspeakable fascination in the sublime solitude of the Desert. I often beheld the sun rise, when, within the wide ring of the horizon, there was no other living creature to be seen. He came up like a god, in awful glory, and it would have been a natural act, had I cast myself upon the sand and worshipped him. The sudden change in the coloring of the landscape, on his appearance—the lighting up of the dull sand into a warm golden hue, and the tintings of purple and violet on the distant porphyry hills—was a morning miracle, which I never beheldwithout awe. The richness of this coloring made the Desert beautiful; it was too brilliant for desolation. The scenery, so far from depressing, inspired and exhilarated me. I never felt the sensation of physical health and strength in such perfection, and was ready to shout from morning till night, from the overflow of happy spirits. The air is an elixir of life—as sweet and pure and refreshing as that which the first Man breathed, on the morning of Creation. You inhale the unadulterated elements of the atmosphere, for there are no exhalations from moist earth, vegetable matter, or the smokes and steams which arise from the abodes of men, to stain its purity. This air, even more than its silence and solitude, is the secret of one’s attachment to the Desert. It is a beautiful illustration of the compensating care of that Providence, which leaves none of the waste places of the earth without some atoning glory. Where all the pleasant aspects of Nature are wanting—where there is no green thing, no fount for the thirsty lip, scarcely the shadow of a rock to shield the wanderer in the blazing noon—God has breathed upon the wilderness his sweetest and tenderest breath, giving clearness to the eye, strength to the frame, and the most joyous exhilaration to the spirits.
Achmet always insisted on my taking a sabre as a protection against the hyenas, but I was never so fortunate as to see more than their tracks, which crossed the path at every step. I saw occasionally the footprints of ostriches, but they, as well as the giraffe, are scarce in this Desert. Towards noon, Achmet and I made a halt in the shadow of a rock, or if no rock was at hand, on the bare sand, and took our breakfast. One’s daily bread is never sweeter than in the Desert. The rest ofthe day I jogged along patiently beside the baggage camels, and at sunset halted for the night. A divan on the sand, and a well-filled pipe, gave me patience while dinner was preparing, and afterwards I made the necessary entries in my journal. I had no need to court sleep, after being rocked all day on the dromedary.
At the close of the third day, we encamped opposite a mountain which Eyoub calledDjebel Khattab(the Mountain of Wood). TheBahr Khattab, a river of sand, similar to the Bahr bela Ma, and probably a branch of it, crossed our path. I here discovered that the water-skins I had hired from Shekh Abou-Mohammed were leaky, and that our eight skins were already reduced to four, while the Arabs had entirely exhausted their supply. This rendered strict economy necessary, as there was but a single well on the road. Until noon the next day we journeyed over a vast plain of sand, interrupted by low reefs of black rock. To the south-east it stretched unbroken to the sky, and looking in that direction, I saw two hemispheres of yellow and blue, sparkling all over with light and heat, so that the eye winked to behold them. The colocynth (called by the Arabsmurràr), grew in many places in the dry, hot sand. The fruit resembles a melon, and is so intensely bitter that no animal will eat it. I made breakfast under the lee of an isolated rock, crowned with a beacon of camel-bones. We here met three Ababdehs, armed with long spears, on their way to Korosko. Soon after mid-day the plain was broken by low ranges of hills, and we saw in front and to the east of us many blue mountain-chains. Our road approached one of them—a range, several miles in length, the highest peak of which reached an altitude of a thousandfeet. The sides were precipitous and formed of vertical strata, but the crests were agglomerations of loose stones, as if shaken out of some enormous coal-scuttle. The glens and gorges were black as ink; no speck of any other color relieved the terrible gloom of this singular group of hills. Their aspect was much more than sterile: it was infernal. The name given to them by the guide wasDjilet e’ Djindee, the meaning of which I could not learn. At their foot I found a few thorny shrubs, the first sign of vegetation since leaving Korosko.
We encamped half an hour before sunset on a gravelly plain, between two spurs of the savage hills, in order that our camels might browse on the shrubs, and they were only too ready to take advantage of the permission. They snapped off the hard, dry twigs, studded with cruel thorns, and devoured them as if their tongues were made of cast-iron. We were now in the haunts of the gazelle and the ostrich, but saw nothing of them. Shekh Ali taught me a few words of the Bishàree language, asking for the English words in return, and was greatly delighted when I translated okam (camel), into “O camel!” “Wallah!” said he, “your language is the same as ours.” The Bishàree tongue abounds with vowels, and is not unmusical. Many of the substantives commence witho—asomek, a donkey;oshà, a cow;ogana, a gazelle. The plural changesointoa, asakam, camels;amek, donkeys, &c. The language of the Ababdehs is different from that of the Bishàrees, but probably sprang from the same original stock. Lepsius considers that the Kenoos dialect of Nubia is an original African tongue, having no affinity with any of the Shemitic languages.
On the fifth day we left the plain, and entered a countryof broken mountain-ranges. In one place the road passed through a long, low hill of slate rock, by a gap which had been purposely broken. The strata were vertical, the laminæ varying from one to four inches in thickness, and of as fine a quality and smooth a surface as I ever saw. A long wady, or valley, which appeared to be the outlet of some mountain-basin, was crossed by a double row of stunted doum-palms, marking a water-course made by the summer rains. Eyoub pointed it out to me, as the half-way station between Korosko and Abou-Hammed. For two hours longer we threaded the dry wadys, shut in by black, chaotic hills. It was now noonday, I was very hungry, and the time allotted by Eyoub for reachingBir Mûrr-hàthad passed. He saw my impatience and urged his dromedary into a trot, calling out to me to follow him. We bent to the west, turned the flank of a high range, and after half an hour’s steady trotting, reached a side-valley or cul-de-sac, branching off from the main wady. A herd of loose camels, a few goats, two black camel’s-hair tents, and half a dozen half-naked Ababdehs, showed that we had reached the wells. A few shallow pits, dug in the centre of the valley, furnished an abundance of bitter, greenish water, which the camels drank, but which I could not drink. The wells are called by the Arabsel morra, “the bitter.” Fortunately, I had two skins of Nile-water left, which, with care, would last to Abou-Hammed. The water was always cool and fresh, though in color and taste it resembled a decoction of old shoes.
The Wells of Mûrr-hàt.
The Wells of Mûrr-hàt.
The Wells of Mûrr-hàt.
We found at the wells Capt. Peel’s Syrian friend, Churi, who was on his way to Korosko with five camels, carrying the Captain’s baggage. He left immediately after my arrival, or I might have sent by him a Christmas greeting to friends athome. During the afternoon three slave-merchants arrived, in four days from Abou-Hammed. Their caravan of a hundred and fifty slaves was on the way. They were tall, strong, handsome men, dark-brown in complexion, but with regular features. They were greatly pleased with my sketch-book, but retreated hastily when I proposed making a drawing of them. I then called Eyoub into my tent, who willingly enough sat for the rough sketch which heads this chapter. Achmet did his best to give me a good Christmas dinner, but the pigeons were all gone, and the few fowls which remained were so spiritless from the heat and jolting of the camel, that their slaughter anticipated their natural death by a very short time. Nevertheless, I produced a cheery illumination by the tent-lanterns, and made Eyoub and the Bishàrees happy with a bottle of arakee and some handfulls of tobacco. The windwhistled drearily around my tent, but I glowed like fire from the oozing out of the heat I had absorbed, and the Arabs without, squatted around their fire of camel’s dung, sang the wild, monotonous songs of the Desert.
We left Mûrr-hàt at sunrise, on the morning of the sixth day. I walked ahead, through the foldings of the black mountains, singing as I went, from the inspiration of the brilliant sky and the pure air. In an hour and a half the pass opened on a broad plain of sand, and I waited for my caravan, as the day was growing hot. On either side, as we continued our journey, the blue lakes of the mirage glittered in the sun. Several isolated pyramids rose above the horizon, far to the East, and a purple mountain-range in front, apparently two or three hours distant, stretched from east to west. “We will breakfast in the shade of those mountains,” I said to Achmet, but breakfast-time came and they seemed no nearer, so I sat down in the sand and made my meal. Towards noon we met large caravans of camels, coming from Berber. Some were laden with gum, but the greater part were without burdens, as they were to be sold in Egypt. In the course of the day upwards of a thousand passed us. Among the persons we met was Capt. Peel’scawass, or janissary (whom he had left in Khartoum), on his return, with five camels and three slaves, which he had purchased on speculation. He gave such a dismal account of Soudân, that Achmet was quite gloomy for the rest of the day.
The afternoon was intensely hot, the thermometer standing at 100°, but I felt little annoyance from the heat, and used no protection against it. The sand was deep and the road a weary one for the camels, but the mountains which seemed so nearat hand in the morning were not yet reached. We pushed forward; the sun went down, and the twilight was over before we encamped at their base. The tent was pitched by the light of the crescent moon, which hung over a pitchy-black peak. I had dinner at the fashionable hour of seven. Achmet was obliged to make soup of the water of Mûrr-hàt, which had an abominable taste. I was so drowsy that before my pipe was finished, I tumbled upon my mattress, and was unconscious until midnight, when I awoke with the sensation of swimming in a river of lava. Eyoub called the mountainKab el Kafass—an absurd name, without meaning—but I suspect it is the same ridge which crosses the caravan route from Shendy to Assouan, and which is called Djebel Shigre by Bruce and Burckhardt.
The tent was struck in the morning starlight, at which time the thermometer stood at 55°. I walked alone through the mountains, which rose in conical peaks to the height of near a thousand feet. The path was rough and stony until I reached the outlet of the pass. When the caravan came up, I found that the post-courier who left Korosko two days after us, had joined it. He was a jet-black, bare-headed and barelegged Bishàree, mounted on a dromedary. He remained with us all day, and liked our company so well that he encamped with us, in preference to continuing his journey. On leaving the mountain, we entered a plain of coarse gravel, abounding with pebbles of agate and jasper. Another range, which Eyoub called Djebel Dighlee, appeared in front, and we reached it about noon. The day was again hot, the mercury rising to 95°. It took us nearly an hour to pass Djebel Dighlee, beyond which the plain stretched away to the Nile, interruptedhere and there by a distant peak. Far in advance of us lay Djebel Mokràt, the limit of the next day’s journey. From its top, said Eyoub, one may see the palm-groves along the Nile. We encamped on the open plain, not far from two black pyramidal hills, in the flush of a superb sunset. The ground was traversed by broad strata of gray granite, which lay on the surface in huge boulders. Our camels here found a few bunches of dry, yellow grass, which had pierced the gravelly soil. To the south-east was a mountain called by the ArabsDjebel Nogàra(the Mountain of the Drum), because, as Eyoub declared, a devil who had his residence among its rocks, frequently beat a drum at night, to scare the passing caravans.
The stars were sparkling freshly and clearly when I rose, on the morning of the eighth day, and Djebel Mokràt lay like a faint shadow on the southern horizon. The sun revealed a few isolated peaks to the right and left, but merely distant isles on the vast, smooth ocean of the Desert. It was a rapture to breathe air of such transcendent purity and sweetness. I breakfasted on the immense floor, sitting in the sun, and then jogged on all day, in a heat of 90°, towards Djebel Mokràt, which seemed as far off as ever. The sun went down, and it was still ahead of us. “That is aDjebel Shaytan,” I said to Eyoub; “or rather, it is no mountain; it is an afrite.” “O Effendi!” said the old man, “don’t speak of afrites here. There are many in this part of the Desert, and if a man travels alone here at night, one of them walks behind him and forces him to go forward and forward, until he has lost his path.” We rode on by the light of the moon and stars—silently at first, but presently Shekh Ali began to sing his favorite song of “Yallah salaàmeh, el-hamdu lillàh fôk belàmeh,” and oneof the Kenoos, to beguile the way, recited in a chanting tone, copious passages from the Koran. Among other things, he related the history of Joseph, which Achmet translated to me. The whole story would be too long to repeat, but portions of it are interesting.
“After Joseph had been thrown into the well,” continued the Kenoos, “a caravan of Arabs came along, and began to draw water for the camels, when one of the men said: ‘O Shekh, there is something in the well.’ ‘Well,’ said the Shekh, ‘if it be a man, he belongs to me, but if it be goods, you may have them.’ So they drew it up, and it was Joseph, and the Shekh took him to Cairo and sold him to Azeez (Potiphar).’ [I omit his account of Potiphar’s wife, which could not well be repeated.] When Joseph was in prison, he told what was the meaning of the dreams of Sultan Faraoon’s baker and butler, who were imprisoned with him. The Sultan himself soon afterwards had a dream about seven fat cows eating seven lean ones, which nobody could explain. Then the jailer went to Faraoon, and said: ‘Here is Joseph, in jail—he can tell you all about it.’ Faraoon said: ‘Bring him here, then.’ So they put Joseph in a bath, washed him, shaved his head, gave him a new white turban, and took him to the Sultan, who said to him: ‘Can you explain my dream?’ ‘To be sure I can,’ said Joseph, ‘but if I tell you, you must make me keeper of your magazines.’ ‘Very well:’ said Faraoon. Then Joseph told how the seven fat cows meant seven years when the Nile would have two inundations a year, and the seven lean cows, seven years afterwards when it would have no inundation at all; and he said to Faraoon that since he was now magazine-keeper, he should take from all the country as far as Assouan, during theseven fat years, enough wheat and dourra and beans, to last during the seven lean ones.” The narrator might have added that the breed of fat kine has never been restored, all the cattle of Egypt being undoubted descendants of the lean stock.
Two hours after sunset, wekilledDjebel Mokràt, as the Arabs say: that is, turned its corner. The weary camels were let loose among some clumps of dry, rustling reeds, and I stretched myself out on the sand, after twelve hours in the saddle. Our water was nearly exhausted by this time, and the provisions were reduced to hermits’ fare—bread, rice and dates. I had, however, the spice of a savage appetite, which was no sooner appeased, than I fell into a profound sleep. I could not but admire the indomitable pluck of the little donkeys owned by the Kenoos. These animals not only carried provisions and water for themselves and their masters, the whole distance, but the latter rode them the greater part of the way; yet they kept up with the camels, plying their little legs as ambitiously the last day as the first. I doubt whether a horse would have accomplished as much under similar circumstances.
The next morning we started joyfully, in hope of seeing the Nile, and even Eyoub, for the first time since leaving Korosko, helped to load the camels. In an hour we passed the mountain of Mokràt, but the same endless plain of yellow gravel extended before us to the horizon. Eyoub had promised that we should reach Abou-Hammed in half a day, and even pointed out some distant blue mountains in the south, as being beyond the Nile. Nevertheless, we travelled nearly till noon without any change of scenery, and no more appearance of riverthan the abundant streams of the mirage, on all sides. I drank my last cup of water for breakfast, and then continued my march in the burning sun, with rather dismal spirits. Finally, the Desert, which had been rising since we left the mountain, began to descend, and I saw something like round granite boulders lying on the edge of the horizon. “Effendi, see the doum-trees!” cried Eyoub. I looked again: theyweredoum-palms, and so broad and green that they must certainly stand near water. Soon we descended into a hollow in the plain, looking down which I saw to the south a thick grove of trees, and over their tops the shining surface of the Nile. “Ali,” I called to my sailor-servant, “look at that greatbahr shaytan!” The son of the Nile, who had never before, in all his life, been more than a day out of sight of its current, was almost beside himself with joy. “Wallah, master,” he cried, “that is no river of the Devil: it is the real Nile—the water of Paradise.” It did my heart good to see his extravagant delight. “If you were to give me five piastres, master,” said he, “I would not drink the bitter water of Mûrr-hàt.” The guide made me a salutation, in his dry way, and the two Nubians greeted me with “a great welcome to you, O, Effendi!” With every step the valley unfolded before me—such rich deeps of fan-like foliage, such a glory in the green of the beans and lupins, such radiance beyond description in the dance of the sunbeams on the water! The landscape was balm to my burning eyes, and the mere sight of the glorious green herbage was a sensuous delight, in which I rioted for the rest of the day.